Essential Feats?

[Nifft]

If Combat Casting simply said: you automatically succeed when casting defensively, it would be worth a Feat. Hmm. sound of website editing

-- N

 

[Von Ether]

Maybe its the play style of the groups I have been in, but Weapon Finessee is a mandatory feat for rogues. Between having a ranger whose either up front blocking my LOS or having a ranger in the back who needs the LOS more than me. The only option is to tumble around the mess of fighters and take advantage of flanking for sneak attacks.

With that in mind, Improved Initiative is nice, but a lot of times you have to wait for the fighters to come up or you'll be the first target after your sneak attack.

 

[The Amazing Dingo]

That comment of mine about Quicken Spell at third level was a joke. Its absolutely useless at that level. However, it is an excellent Feat for Mages and Priests at those mid-level (approximately 10th).

 

[Sammael]

For example, take Alertness, Iron Will, and Track away from some trolls, and give them Improved Initiative, Combat Reflexes, and Skill Focus (Tumble). Then, take away some of their skill points to Listen and Spot, and dump them into Tumble. Now you've got trolls that get the jump on the party, maneuver in, perhaps without provoking AoOs, and set themselves up to take full advantage of both their reach and Combat Reflexes.

Remember to give them Int 10, though, since there is no way CE Int 6 creatures are capable of this kind of behavior.

 

[Darkness]

Remember to give them Int 10, though, since there is no way CE Int 6 creatures are capable of this kind of behavior.

What's more, Tumble is not a 'class' skill for trolls and unless you increase their Int to 10+, they only get 9 skill points and thus can't buy more than 4.5 ranks. Which means their Tumble is only +6 unless you change their Dex.

'course, as the DM you can always change a monster's 'class' skills but if you don't (e.g., if they're only a part of a normal tribe of trolls), it is an issue.

 

[Evilhalfling]

I play a meele cleric 11th cleric and casting a quickend divine favor and then charging convererting the attack bonus to more PA damage since we are using the nerfed RM its my fav 5th lvl

 

[Pants]

I dunno about essential, but I really like Improved Initiative. The power to improve your chances of going first is really handy, especially for Rogues. At higher levels it's even better since a lot of combats boil down to 'who goes first.'

I also like Improved Toughness from CW. More HP per level is always a good thing.

For Druids, Natural Spell is essential. No doubt.

Spell Penetration and GSP will be very handy if the campaign features lots of SR monsters.

Weapon Focus and Weapon Spec (+ the greater versions) are important for the Fighter who focuses on one weapon.

It's all situational really.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I like Improved Toughness, but for the starting mage, it's a bit of a stretch.

If they ever errata Toughness, it should be something like +3 hit points and once your reach 4th level, you gain 1 bonus hit point per level.

 

[Pants]

I like Improved Toughness, but for the starting mage, it's a bit of a stretch.

If they ever errata Toughness, it should be something like +3 hit points and once your reach 4th level, you gain 1 bonus hit point per level.

Improved Toughness has a prereq of a Base Fort +2, so the starting mage can't actually take it for a while.

 

[Enkhidu]

I've always had this knee-jerk reaction to the idea that a feat is simply indispensible for a balanced character concept (example: Power Attack). I've always wondered why those abilites aren't simply class abilites.